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March 13, 2011

In today's NYTimes, Adam Bryant reports on Google's quest to build a better boss. A high priority for the firm, Google understood that outstanding bosses are key to the future of the organization.

Actually, there were no surprises except that the Bryant and the Google team made a very big deal out of the fact that technological expertise ranked last in the survey of employee's desires for a better boss. Why is that such a big deal? The transition that practically every person who becomes a manager has to make is to learn that technical expertise does not make for effective management. It's a tough transition for many, but news? Hardly. I've worked one-on-one with technology managers for more than 25 years and I have yet to meet a manager at director, VP or CIO level who thinks that technology expertise is a high priority. Those who think technology expertise is fundamental for managing technology people really don't understand people.

To figure out what a better manager will look like, Google poured over performance reviews, feedback surveys and award nominations, correlating words and phrases "as only a data-driven company can do."

According to the Times writer, here's the list of Google's Rules--in order of importance--as well as a few management pitfalls it found.

Eight Good Behaviors

Be a good coach.

Empower your team and don't micromanage.

Express interest in team members's success and personal well-being.

Don't be a sissy: Be productive and results-oriented.

Be a good communicator and listen to your team.

Help your employees with career development.

Have a clear vision and strategy for the team.

Have key technical skills so you can help advise the team.

Three Pitfalls of Managers

Have trouble making a transition to teh team.

Lack a consistent approach to performance management and career development.

Spend too little time managing and communicating.

[Note: Follow above links to NYTimes article and rules.]

Based on my experience, I'd say the Google employees nailed the issues spot-on. What do you think?

December 31, 2010

Good managers, we are told, know how to motivate their people. The result of this ideology, of course, is that most managers spend a lot of time trying to figure out how to do just this. And inevitably, conference planners schedule conferences with so-called great motivational coaches and managers from business and sports. All these speakers emphasize the manager's role in motivating people.

I'm very skeptical of much of what goes under this rubric of coaches and managers "motivating people." As a result I was absolutely delighted to see what the omnipresent Mark Zuckerberg of Facebook had to say about motivation.

Zuckerberg takes issue with the way he's portrayed in The Social Network, especially that he built Facebook to build a pot of gold. What he said to a Stanford audience about the movie portrayal and his own motivation is especially illuminating. They frame it (the movie) as if the whole reason I invented Facebook was that I wanted to get girls or to get into some kind of social institution. They just can't wrap their head around the idea that someone might build something because they like building things.

In what amounts to an expose of The Social Network, Viginia Heffernan writes in a New York Times article, Network Error, contrasting the movie Zuckerberg with the real guy's motivation. As Heffernan commented, Zuckerberg doesn't mean that he is free from ambition. It's just that his struggles and goals are not about notoriety, status or romance. Quoting Virgil Griffith, she reminds her readers that hackerdom rewards spontaneity, curiosity and ingenuity. Scientific questions like the creativity inherent in Facebook are deeper and the answers so uplifting and transcendently beautiful that contact with them is a genuine spiritual experience.

In other words, Zuckerberg and his compatriots in the work world are all self-motivated. My experience has been very similar throughout all my client base. The managers that really do well and achieve legendary productivity are superb at identifying and hiring self-motivated people. They don't spend their time motivating people.

October 20, 2010

Bob Sutton’s new book, Good Boss, Bad Boss, is a wonderful book for both managers and their people. It is fact-and research-based, filled with fascinating stories and interactions with managers from all over the planet, and loaded with very, very useful advice. On top of all that, it’s exceptionally readable.

Sutton makes it clear that his basic purpose is to describe what a good boss looks like. His research and anecdotes intentionally compare “better versus worse” behaviors in order to make the nuances of good managing crystal clear. Bob writes so that you can turn knowledge into practice and develop the needed skills that will make becoming a good boss second nature.

Chapter one sets up the book, emphasizing why bosses matter, providing numerous examples and the research to support the boss’s importance. Summarizing Gallup research, for example, Sutton reveals that in a survey of over 100,000 employees in more than 2,500 diverse businesses, “managers trump companies.” Not only is your boss more important than the quality of your company in impacting performance, but a Swedish study even shows that people with the best bosses “suffered fewer heart attacks than those with bad bosses.” Throughout the chapter, Bob Sutton presents the necessary ideas to get you to think seriously about your taken-for-granted assumptions about the differences between good and bad bosses. He also provides some simple notions you can use to guide your reading—and digesting--of the book.

The major portion of the book, Section II, is given over to what the best bosses do, and includes taking control, striving to be wise, recruiting people with “connective talents,” tying the “knowing-doing gap” together, protecting people, implementing tough decisions, demonstrating needed humility and “squelching your inner jerk.”

Bob Sutton, a Stanford Business School prof, is almost unique in that he has a foot in two camps: academia and the business world and exceptional in both. Unusual? Very. I’ve got nearly 3,000 business books in my library and when I go through them, they either smell of the ivory tower too much, or are filled with advice from an exec’s own successes. I don’t trust either. I’ve learned that the bulk of business advice doesn’t travel. You can’t apply what one great leader says about his company to your company and your organization and your life. And you can start on that with Jack Welch. (I must confess that I snickered when a few years ago Jack Welch, rather defensively, wrote that he never told anyone his advice would travel.) On the other side of the matter, a great deal of academic writers, including many of those in business schools around the world, are too conceptual for their advice to be useful. Often, it’s just not practical--and it won’t travel either. Peter Senge, the really brilliant MIT academic, admitted the same—openly--in a workshop. Sutton, in contrast, is both highly practical and fact-based. As a result, I’ve plagiarized the hell out of some of his advice and my clients love it. They use it. They tell me it works. And they always want more of his stuff. And he’s a writer, I’ve learned, that a lot of non-reading business types will read. His stuff really travels. And that’s the best test for a business writer.

I’ve also got a very important warning. As you work through Good Boss, Bad Boss, you’re going to find yourself tempted to think that what Sutton says is obvious and just common sense. Be very careful when that conclusion crosses your gray matter. My experience tells me that it’s wrong most of the time. And it’s not just that common sense is not so common, it’s more than that. Take, for example, Sutton’s fact-based insight that “people quit bad bosses, not organizations.” That’s obvious, you might think. But the fact of the matter is that it’s neither obvious, nor common sense, nor even useful information until Sutton calls your attention to it. Why do I say that? I’ve found again and again that that the notion that people quit bad bosses, not organizations is just not on an exec’s radar screen. As a result, most execs put up with bad bosses that are doing serious damage to their organization for a long, long time. They can lose five to ten good people before they finally realize that their subordinate, that boss, is doing serious damage, and finally, they dump that bad boss. So throughout the book when you’re tempted to think Sutton’s conclusions are merely obvious--and skip over them--be very careful.

Last, each chapter has at least one list of tips, tricks, commandments, or recommendations that are loaded with straightforward, practical steps to becoming a better boss and employee. Throughout the entire book is the idea that you’re creating your own path to becoming a better boss. As Bob entitles that last chapter, It’s All About You. And although he’s given illustration after illustration of people who become better bosses, in his last chapter he pulls together the most important themes from his book, even prioritizes them for you. He closes with two acid tests for great bosses. I’ll let you buy Bob’s book and read up on them for yourself.

July 30, 2010

I'm nearly halfway through a galley of Bob Sutton's masterful new book, Good Boss, Bad Boss. This is going to be a blockbuster. It's a book we'll all want to devour and use. I'm already thinking about some bosses who'll want this book and planning it as a gift for them. These are men and women who are trying to become better bosses and I know they'll find this very helpful.

You could, I suppose, think of this as a sequel to his last blockbuster, The No Asshole Rule. But here, he sets out to contrast the differences between the best and worst bosses.

I really like the way Bob's wife set this up for him. A boss herself, she wants to know what a great boss looks like.

Some of you might be tempted to say that you know what a good boss is and what he/she would look like. I'm very, very skeptical of those comments. It's like saying you know what a good marriage or a good relationship looks like. I've been around the barn enough times to know that what a good marriage or a good relationship looks like to one person is not what it looks like to another. Instead a good marriage or a good relationship is good for both parties. Same with a good boss. She's a good boss for herself and a good boss for her subordinates.

You'll find a good boss spelled out in detail with plenty of evidence backing up the conclusions, and many highly useful recommendations.

Stay tuned. I'll be writing about this book on several occasions, teasing you with reasons to add it to your bookshelf and start putting its recommendations to work for yourself.

April 20, 2010

Recently in coaching conversations with several new managers, I found myself thinking about Harvard's David McClelland and his findings about managers. In his now classic research he found that managers fall into three motivational groups. His conclusions are timelessly pertinent:

Affiliative mangers need to be liked more than they need to get things done. Their decisions are aimed at increasing their own popularity rather than promoting the goals of the organization.

Managers motivated by the need to achieve focus on setting goals and reaching them, but they put their own achievement and recognition first. In contrast to highly affiliative managers, they aren't worried about what people think of them.

Institutional managers are interested above all in power. Recognizing that you get things done inside organizations only if you can influence the people around you, they focus on building power through influence, rather than through their own individual achievement. People in this third group are the most effective and their direct reports:

Have a greater sense of responsibility.

See organizational goals more clearly.

Exhibit more team spirit.

Again and again it's clear that effective delegation may be one of the most difficult tasks for new managers. Their reluctance to delegate assignments has roots in real fears of two kinds:

Losing stature. "If I assign high-profile projects to my staff, they'll get the credit. What kind of visibility will I be left with? Will my boss understand the value I'm adding?"

Overburdening the staff. "Will my staff resent me?"

Five keys for new managers!

You are no longer an individual contributor.

Your main task is the development of talented staff.

You are a partner with your boss--not his/her servant.

You have key corporate objectives to achieve--through others!

You are responsible for holding staff acountable.

The essence of a manager's work is that by giving away power, you increase the total sum of power. And as a leader, you actually gain more power. Indeed, successful management is more an art than a science. Successful managing is so satisfying that it becomes addictive!

December 28, 2009

Teresa Amabile continues in her quest to challenge conventional wisdom around creativity and motivation. Although I'm certain that's not her ambition, her research often rejects the shibboleths of creativity and motivation, so much that if her fingerprint is on the research, I'll quickly pick it up.

For example, most execs believe that people come up with their best work when time is tight. Push them and they'll perform better. Amabile found that that's not at all the case. Indeed, when you're under the gun time-wise, you'll think far less creatively.

In yesterday's post on ten breakthrough ideas, I noted that for my business in development and performance improvement, this was the most intriguing.

As the Harvard Business Review summary indicates, Amabile and colleagues completed research over several years and with more than 600 managers. The study tracked the day-to-day activities, emotions, and motivational levels of workers in different settings. Amazingly, the research showed that the top motivator of performance is what the execs considered to be least significant.

Executives thought that recognition for good work was the number one motivating factor. The research showed that the real issue of motivation is progress. In other words, when knowledge workers have the sense that they're making headway in their job, or that they're getting the support necessary for overcoming obstacles, then their drive to succeed is at is most meaningful.

But, when employees feel that they are spinning their wheels or having to deal with roadblocks to meaningful accomplishment, their moods and motives are at the lowest.

The Breakthrough

The good news about this research finding is that the key to motivation turns out to be under the control of the manager. It doesn't depend on elaborate incentive systems. You don't have to spend time trying to figure out what's really inside your employee's black box of a brain.

Here are Amabile's recommendations:

Take care to clarify goals.

Ensure that people's efforts are properly supported.

Keep from exerting time pressure so intense that minor glitches become crises.

The research does reveal that recognition motivates. So celebrate progress, even incremental progresss.

November 03, 2009

Slackermanager.com is quite dead, but my friend, Phil Gerbyshak still lives. All the content from slackermanager has been moved to Phil's new site: www.themanagementexpert.com. He's going to continue blogging at the new site.

Phil wasn't cued into the decision, but all the business blogs on the site were eliminated. When you blog on a business organization's site, you face one set of difficulties. The organization may decide that there's not enough money in your blogging. When you blog on your own site, you'll find a different set of difficulties--all the responsibilities are your own.

Oh well, always remember the Spanish proverb: Purchase what you may, but pay for it.

September 26, 2009

The 21st century is going to put expectations on managers that many have never considered, much less had brought to their attention. We know that thinking skills, people skills and creativity are going to be at a premium. That could be intimidating if you think about yourself from a genetic perspective, but the mantra today is a bit different: Talent is grown, not born. As a result, viewing these competencies from the perspective of excellent narrative can be a useful exercise for personal growth.

One of the finest descriptive analyses of a bureaucrat that I have seen in years is George Packer's work on Richard Holbrooke in the September 28 New Yorker. Holbrooke, who brokered the Dayton Peace Accords with Slobodan Milosevic, now serves as special representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan under the Obama administration.

Lest you think that the article is one liberal journalist, George Packer, writing about another liberal politician, Richard Holbrooke, I urge you to read David Frum's appreciative blog on George Packer. Frum, you may remember was an economic speech writer for Bush, is now resident fellow at the American Enterprise Institute and also writer for the National Review. As Frum summarizes, Packer is an exceedingly elegant writer.

What's especially useful for businesspeople is that Holbrooke's skills are detailed and placed in a work context that includes current affairs, historical matter and personal bio, so you've got a concrete description of the specific competency. Packer provides you with masterful descriptions of strengths along with the warts, while emphasizing personal complexity. For example,

His great advantage over most colleagues and opponents is his analytic and synthetic prowess, which allows him . . . to break down the reasons for the Taliban's successful propaganda campaign in the tribal areas while connecting it to imperial British history in the region. As for his flaws, he seems remarkably unaware of them. Holbrooke cannot be kidded about the trait for which he's best known: his ego.

With that kind of information, you'd think that Holbrooke might be an insensitive jerk.

The notion that Holbrooke craves attention . . . is accurate but misleading. Far from undermining those he works for, Holbrooke is a loyal servant to power, with an old-fashioned respect for the presidency.

His mentoring skills are legendary, along with his willingness to give credit where its due. He also knows not only how to access power, but how to get the support and people he needs. Packer relates Holbrooke's need for a certain Afghani human-rights specialist who was wary of losing her independence. It took him a month, but eventually he won her. Henry Kissinger's comment on recruiting skills is telling:

If Richard calls you and asks you for something, just say yes. If you say no, you'll eventually get to yes, but the journey will be very painful.

The take on ambiguity, that difficult and little understood competency underlying business success, is, well . . . unique, to say the least. Christopher Hill, who has held ambassadorships to Korea, Macedonia, Poland and now Iraq describes Holbrooke's thinking process this way:

He often works on the music before he gets to the words, creating an atmosphere and a sense of what we are dealing with--are we dealing with a sad song, or what? Right now, Richard Holbrooke is getting a sense of the issues, the people. Eventually, the music will shift from Vietnam to the Balkans (Holbrooke's background). And if he gets to a negotiation it will be realistic.

Holbrooke's comment about institution building was that things are not sequential. They have to be parallel. In business language, you've got to deal with the strategic complexities and keep focused on the big picture.

Technically, the article is analytical narrative and that's what makes it so valuable for the reader and the businessperson. The competencies are surfaced, but spelled out in actions. They're easier to recognize and remember in narrative form.

I could go on and on, but this is such an impressive article that you'll find many things to get you thinking. Some of the behaviors may be grating, and I certainly can't imagine recommending some of them. But the strengths are amazing.

I'm saving it and keeping it for my favored clients because it will generate a lot of useful conversation about managing and learning. The September 28 of the New Yorker is on the newstands now, or you can buy the article on the internet for download.

September 17, 2009

In yesterday's post I wrote that the command and control model is coming to an end. Borrowing from Rosabeth Kanter, and from Tom Malone's language, I suggested that a better metaphor for the 21st century is coordinate and cultivate.

Cultivate: she cultivated a taste for fine wine, to prepare and work the land in order to raise crops, to promote the growth or development of a science or art, to foster.

The assembly line and most routine production lend themselves to command and control. Individual creativity and intelligence are not at all necessary when you're dealing with routinized, formulaic processes. But with a global marketplace demanding creativity, innovation and deep smarts, companies will have to take advantage of the intelligence and creativity of their people. People become the real assets of an organization, not bricks and mortar.

The cultivating model surfaced in the late 1980s, not in any finalized or clear format, but I saw managers in technology breaking free from the old command and control of traditional business. Indeed, some of my clients in strategic sales, info technology and architecture work out of the coordinate and cultivate model.

What does cultivate look like?

Malone suggests that film-making provides a prototype of "knowledge-and-creativity intensive work" that will show up in many more industries in the future.

Kathleen Kennedy, the producer of ET, Jurassic Park, . . . describes (the process) for a film producer: "Once principal photography begins, the producer steps back and sees where the movie is going. A film is an organic, living, breathing thing. It's not just defined by what's on paper, it continues to change. The creative process continues throughout and out of that comes sometimes the best ideas. But there needs to be someone who maintains a cohesive vision, a focus on the entire picture and not just the individual elements."

You can see that managing in that setting can be scary: certainly not easy. But, as Malone suggests, thinking of your work as cultivating, rather than controlling, can enable you to be more flexible and open to differing possibilities.

Bottom line: You can't be completely certain of the product or the service that will result, but the intelligence and creativity of professionals are going to be a prerequisite for business success.

September 15, 2009

Yesterday's post focused on the shift from command and control to coordinate and cultivate. Making change ain't easy for any of us, so it's important to make certain that you really want to make the change. Jeff Pfeffer has a recent post on not making change unless it's really necessary. Coordinate and cultivate easily passes the smell test for change, and to a great degree many of my clients have been moving in that direction for some time. They've been working at it in bits and pieces, the small wins approach, which gives them a far better batting average rather than trying to hit a home run in one fell swoop.

Then too, one of the drivers of this change is that my conversations reveal that 90% of subordinates really like it. It gives them more responsibility, but it also gives them opportunities to grow and add to their toolkit. Plainly, in some companies if you don't grow and add to your competency base, you'll be on the streets.

Still, the old command and control exerts a powerful influence on our thinking. It creeps up in the oddest ways. Watch how often when a problem pops up in an organization the solution is to centralize control so it won't happen again. I've watched the push and pull between managers and the boss over a single termination go on for months. "Who's going to make this decision? Do we really need to make it? What'll happen if . . .?" The smart senior exec still kept pushing the decision down, so the managers would learn how to make the right call. But it was caught in the old command and control world for a long time.

Why is change so difficult?

My white paper on that subject reveals 10 reasons why it's difficult to make change. But the biggest may well be that we try to make the change without unfreezing the old behaviors. Kurt Lewin, the grandfather of change theory, found that unfreezing must take place before change can occur. So when you decide to make a change and unfreeze an old practice, begin by asking yourself questions: What are the weaknesses of this practice? Why does it really need to change? What has changed to make this practice ineffective? What will happen if I continue to use the old practice?

Tom Malone describes coordinate and cultivate this way: A cultivation approach recognizes that sometimes you need to control people carefully, sometimes you need to just nudge them in the right direction, and sometimes you need to accept and encourage the direction they're already moving in--even if it isn't the precise direction you'd prefer.

Bottom line: Every manager will need to learn to coach. Better companies are making coaching a key skill for all managers and executives.